


I See Fire

by AgentBarnes616



Series: The Ficlet Series [10]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Civil War, FIx It, I am an evil person, Just fricken prepare yourselves okay?, M/M, Poor Tony, a lot of Tony Stark feels, and there are a lot of painful feels here, but not really, canon character death, feels ahoy, prepare yourselves, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 08:16:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4912069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentBarnes616/pseuds/AgentBarnes616
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of ficlets involving either Billy/Teddy, Steve/Tony or any other myriad of ships I have..... :D</p><p>Part 10: Civil War. Tony. Feels. I'm not a nice person okay?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I See Fire

**Author's Note:**

> A collection of drabbles....That I may or may not have published after writing....HA. Honestly half of these aren't edited.... But they've been run through someone else reading them, and I got the go ahead to post. If you find an error lemme know.
> 
> Come chill with me over on tumblr. @CaptBBarnes

Tony looked up from the proposal Fury had handed him and scowled. "You're serious?"

"We need a man on the inside Stark, and your business skills will come in handy with this. Not to mention your connections on the Hill."

Tony glared again and tossed the file onto the desk. "This could seriously fuck up a lot of lives. You get that right? This isn't something that will just go away after a few years."

Fury sighed, leaning onto his desk. "We need to make sure that this goes right. That this falls on the right side of the line. If this gets going in the wrong hands, it will spell trouble for more than just the supes who haven't come out already."

Tony sighed and leaned back into the chair. "What exactly do you want me to do?"

Fury pushed away from his desk. "This is for the long haul Stark. You don't tell anyone. You report to no one but me."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Just tell me what has to happen."

\--

"You can't be serious!" Steve roars, getting right into Tony's face. "You're for this? You're seriously for putting our friends into a...program...that will end up abusing the very people it's trying to protect! You can't be serious."

"Steve." Tony raises his hands up a little. "Just, listen to me for a minute."

"No. Tony, you don't understand how bad this could get." Steve gives Tony a pleading look. "Please reconsider."

"It's got to be done Steve. Someone has to have accountability. We can't have another incident li-"

Steve slamming the door behind him cuts Tony off midstream. He knows this is only going to get worse. Nothing good ever comes from him and Steve fighting.

\--

Steve becomes a fugitive. Tony feels like his world is crashing in around him. Half of his closest friends won't talk to him anymore, the Avengers have fallen apart, but he keeps to Fury's orders. The press conference with Peter turns heads, but it brings others around that weren't sold on registration, and finally he can start to see some changes. He can see what Fury was trying to avoid and he works with the other man to keep the SHRA from becoming the problem it could have been. Then Fury goes underground, and he's left fronting this initiative alone.

Tony feels guiltier than he has his whole life and he wants to talk to someone. To bring someone in on what he's doing, that he truly isn't this kind of asshole anymore, but he sticks to the orders (for once in his life) and sees the lives of people he cares about fall apart. And he pretends not to care. Tony isn't surprised when Scott Summers declares the X-men neutral. He should have known that anything not detrimental to mutant kind (even though they claim to be super heroes too) would keep their not so white hands away. Tony doesn't care. He doesn't need that head ache.

\--

He and Steve try meeting on neutral ground. But this whole Civil War that's taken over between the superheroes means they don't really listen to each other and they throw every dirty trick in the book at each other. Tony feels in over his head and like he's betraying himself as he betrays Steve. And thank god he has a face plate and Steve can't see the tears that cloud his vision as they fight with each other, even if the voice-mods in the suit make his voice sound unwavering as they banter back and forth.

Things get really our of hand when not!Thor kills Goliath. Tony doesn't want to do this anymore. He doesn't want the guilt that he already feels and wishes that he had really invented that time machine, or told Fury to fuck off, maybe even both.

He completes the negative zone with Richards. 

He doesn't get much sleep anymore anyway.

\--

His armor has completely failed him. Or he's failed it. Tony just knows he's failed a lot of people. This last fight with the non-registered and the registered, it's taking it's toll. Steve has him by the neck and is about finish the fight when people start pulling him back. Steve drops Tony to the ground and he just lays there. The look of horror on Steve's face is enough. Tony knows that he's 'won', but he doesn't feel good about it. He didn't want to be in this position in the first place. He wanted to be where he should have been, at Steve's side fighting this, helping the super hero community heal after what had happened. 

Instead it just got worse. It all got worse. Just because for once in his miserable life Tony had followed a set of fucking orders. He knows as he watches Steve walk away that he should have asked for help. This never should have been something he tried to do alone. He was horrible at trying to do things alone. 

Steve is set to turn himself in tomorrow. Tony wants to die.

\--

It's three in the morning when he hears the door to his room click open. He hadn't been asleep, but he's been through enough kidnappings to know not to tense or to alert the person that you're actually away. The snick of an arrow being strung makes his heart speed up a little and then he's being bathed in light and damn Jarvis for letting them turn the lights on full like that.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Tony is confused. He slowly blinks his eyes open and takes in the scowls from ten different people. Some he's fought with and others he'd fought against. He scoots up in his bed, putting his back against the back board and waits.

"What?"

Steve pushes his way through, the others falling back, and Tony feels a ball of regret fall in his stomach.

"Why didn't you tell us that you were under orders? This could have been avoided!"

Tony just looks at Steve and wants to cease to exist.

"Steve."

Steve holds his hand up and turns to the other heroes in the room. "Give us a bit. Go form a perimeter, no one gets in or out with out my say so."

After a few moments they're alone, and Tony has a death grip on one of his pillows. The bruises from Steve grabbing him still fresh and god, Tony just wants Steve to stop looking at him like that.

"I don't know what you want me to say." Too long playing the role of pushing Steve's buttons, keeping him at arms length, trying to make the other man hate him, because it was just easier than seeing the look of failure on Steve's face.

Steve sighs and walks over to the edge of the bed. "Tony."

Tony looks down at his bed. He can't stand the look on Steve's face. The room is silent for a moment and then Tony feels the bed dip. His heart is is in throat and Tony shakes his head.

"Steve."

"Tony." Steve's voice is soft, and the touch to Tony's chest is even softer. "Why do you always have to be the whipping boy?"

Tony clenches his jaw. "I-" The words die in this throat. Tony doesn't even know what he was trying to do anymore. Just that it had fallen apart spectacularly. 

"You were against it the whole time." Steve asks softly, but it really isn't a question. Tony knows Steve already knows the answer.

Tony closes his eyes and leans away from Steve. 

"That's what I thought. Why Tony?"

Tony's eyes snap open and he glares at Steve, scathing words on the tip of his tongue, but they all die with how close Steve actually is. Something he hasn't been in months, and Tony's body flushes. Steve is looking at him like it's the first time he's seen Tony in years, and really that's what it feels like. Steve's hand cups the side of his face, and Tony can feel the wetness as Steve brushes it away. When did he start crying?

"Tony. We'll fix this."

Tony shakes his head. He broke everything. They were never going to get back to where they were. Never. Steve leans in slowly, and Tony doesn't move. He couldn't move even if he wanted to. Steve's lips press gently against his, and Tony finally relaxes, feels a weight leave his body and that's when Steve pulls him and Tony goes willingly against the super soldiers body.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Tony mumbles out as Steve leans in to kiss him again.

Steve kisses him silent, small touches wandering over Tony's body, relearning a body he used to know so well. Tony responds to all of Steve's small touches, arching into him and pulling on Steve's arms for more. Steve lays Tony out across the bed, pinning the smaller man down with his hips and pushes the shirt Tony's wearing up over his head. Steve peppers Tony's chest with light kisses, nipping briefly at his collar bone before sucking a mark on Tony's neck. Tony keens in the back of his throat, body arching up against Steve's, only making Steve hold him down a little tighter. Tony's breath is ragged and Steve smiles at him for the first time since this all started, and the hole in Tony's chest (proverbial thank you very much) starts to fill slightly.

"Never again." Tony whispers out, staring right into Steve's eyes, hoping that he's conveying everything he wants to say and can't find the words for.

Steve nods, blanketing Tony with his body. Steve kisses Tony deeply instead of replying and they spend the rest of the night in bed relearning each other's bodies.

\--

It's the worst day of his life. The pain he feels in his chest is nothing to the chatter and screams he can hear around him. He's hovering midair watching as the RED...Why is it so red, and Steve just needs to get up. And his brain is seriously not processing that Steve Rogers is laying on the ground, shot and more than likely dead.

Jarvis shuts down all his com-links as he starts wailing, because no this wasn't suppose to happen. It was suppose to get better and he and Steve were fixing things, and, WHY. 

He's sitting in a room with the body. Because he won't let himself think, won't let himself truly accept what's going on right now. He's back into the act he's been having to do this whole fiasco, because there are still people watching and there are still things that need to be done. But Tony feels like he's been cut from the inside out and he's bleeding. 

"The good news through all of this.....I never took a single drink..." He pauses and wipes away the tears that are falling. "So I guess if I can manage not to drink through this...I probably never will again...."

He just keeps rambling. Letting himself say all the things he's been holding back but at the same time keeping with the facade of what he's been ordered to do. And it kills him.

Tony sits in on meetings and is made Director of SHIELD. He still hasn't heard from Fury, but he knows that those around him will have words with the former Director when he shows back up (If he does), because apparently it's gotten out what he truly felt about the SHRA, but the damage has been done, and Tony moves forward. Tony lets himself fall back into be callous and keeping people at arms length. He never really gave Steve the credit of keeping him tolerable and human until he wasn't around to do it.

A strange man appears in front of him one day while he's out on patrol and shows him two ways this Civil War could have gone. Tony takes a leave of absence and cries for the bright future he helped prevent.

He doesn't know where to go from here and just falls into the motions of being Director. He deals with Maria's constant snark, and humors her only a little, until he's pushed too far and then just snaps. He deals with rebuilding teams that should have never fallen apart in the first place, and with building new agencies to support what the SHRA was after. Tony starts his own Avengers team, and swears to himself that he won't fail this one.


End file.
